From the Cottage in the Woods
by morningmagpie
Summary: For her own protection, Hermione has been sent to live in a secluded part of England. Furious, yet still eager to help the Order, she enlists the help of a very unlikely person, who just so happens to owe her a life debt.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I own absolutely nothing. Just playing around with the characters, because I like to mess with their heads. ;)

* * *

**Prologue**

Suppose you knew a young man with grey eyes and soft hair and hard angles for a face. Suppose you knew his name, his family, the brand on his arm and what it meant. Suppose you knew him from school, heard him call you names across the hall. Suppose you hated him, as many of you did, and that you would not care if he happened to die.

Now, suppose you knew the way his chest tightened every single time he saw someone his own age fall to the ground after that blast of green light. Suppose you knew that he spent most of his evenings staring at the ceiling, hoping that the tiredness would someday go away and that he would forget all that he had seen. Suppose you knew that he often thought of a small house in the woods and of the girl who lived there.

But none of you knew, so none of you searched for him when he disappeared. You thought he was dead or that fate had finally bitten back after all of those years. You celebrated over drinks and laughing and many of you shouted to the sky that the world was better off without him. Only one of you went looking; she wasn't at the celebration that night, for you had sent her to live in her cottage in the woods some months ago. She was only one who went looking, but she still only went looking out of desperation. She was restless - her bookwork was no longer enough to satisfy her. She went in search of the young man who often thought of her house in the woods, for he was the only one who knew of it. She went alone and she did not tell her friends, because she knew that they would stop her.

She went in the middle of the night, when the snow was fresh and the moon reflected off of it so that her field looked like a highway of light. She went when they raised their glasses to the ceiling and pronounced him dead. She went in search of an answer.

* * *

**End Notes**: Yep, it's a short little one. If I'm lucky, the next chapter will be up tomorrow! As always, feel free to press that lil' button underneath this ;)


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **Holy crap, guys! This took me so much longer than a day to post up – college life really isn't conducive for writing fiction. But yes, that's all just excuses, so I'll get the next chapter up faster!

**Chapter One**

**June 2001 – Five Months Earlier**

It smelled the way it did after it first rained. From where she stood, Hermione could see the fields soaking up the water, the tree bark saturated and heavy with the rain. She loved the smell of the earth after the season's first shower – for it was June and most of England was dry and yellow – because it reminded her of being small and looking up toward the sky, half expecting that she could float up to the grey clouds and curl up in them. But she was no longer little and the smell of the earth after rain only made her think of times before the war. Of how wonderful it had been: play-acting the hero with Harry and Ron, vaguely understanding that the act might soon become very real, but still young enough to think that the time might never come. She was twenty now, an age which had always held a mystique, as if her eleven year old self felt she might not live so long. It was an age which she did not feel; she often felt much older. She now understood the lines that appeared on young faces and the hair that prematurely turned grey – all of it happened because of the awful but inevitable thoughts that preceded every step, the panicked hope that her last moments would not be filled with the crying from inside and the screams from next door. It was in every waking moment, that desperate, frenzied chaos that shattered into her head and sometimes had her reaching for more Firewhiskey with Ginny or shoving Dean Thomas against the stairwell that one night so she could forget how pathetically _scared_ she was as he sloppily brushed his tongue against hers.

It didn't help to know that Dean Thomas was now dead, had been for several months, and all she could remember about him was the way he had clumsily groped her breasts while she was pressed up against him in the hallway. How much had they had to drink that night? How much had they been drinking over the course of the war? How many times did they come to Headquarters with news of another body and grimaced until the liquor had numbed their lips?

It was only natural, she could remember George saying, as she watched him fill his canter up halfway, that they all wanted to erase the many things buzzing in their heads. It was only natural to want to ignore those memories in which one was at fault, in which one could see another person's eyes closing for the last time. For it was so much worse than she thought it would have been, watching someone fall after that blast of light, and she remembered looking at George and wondering how he managed to wake in the morning with the insurmountable tragedy of Fred's death hanging over his bed.

As the years had passed, Hermione began to forget when she had been able to look at her friends without noticing in every look their frightening attempts to shut her away. How had Ron not noticed that she had long ago seen the stinging pity in his face when she fastened the armband to her robes? How could they expect it of her _not_ to research the tidbits of news they kept secret from her, for her not to read the tiny articles in the whisper of dawn and cry silently as she thought for the fifth time that month that perhaps things would never get better? How had all of them been able to trap her within this homey prison that looked and smelled and felt like her but which reminded her with its familiarity that she was unwanted?

She supposed it was for the same reason that they tried to avoid sneaking glances at the band around her tricep. The same reason that she noticed that they had begun to hold meetings without her knowledge, that they had long ago given up on her work in the field, preferring to lock her up in Headquarters with busywork.

The last few times had only been a fluke, a trick of her own invention. This time, if the Death Eaters came for her, the Order was certain that she would die.

* * *

**November 1998**

The fog had finally rolled in, after months of waiting for it. Draco hadn't slept for want of the fog, so great had been his desire to see it, so necessary was it for his plan. He'd spent the past few weeks hoping to see the grey mist slip up from the ocean and lazily stroll across the hills.

Tonight, he and several others were to sneak into an Order safehouse and capture whomever was lodged there. The presence of fog did little else but disguise their movements well; Draco was fairly certain that he and the others would be able to move through the wooded area without being seen at all.

Tactically, the plan was lacking. There was hardly any strategy to it other than hiding themselves among the silken, overwhelming mist that soaked into the valleys during this time of year. But Draco was sure that this would not fail, that he would be able to enter the safehouse without causalities, that he could break into the Order's defenses with relative ease. He was a prodigious wizard, he knew this, and he'd been practicing with his aunt and his father for some time now, determined to redeem his family in the eyes of the Dark Lord.

They had little else to lose, for their home had already been given up, and their positions as Death Eaters were of a low standard. Even at Hogwarts, a place which Draco yearned to leave, he and his family were considered of poor value when compared to the increasing power of several other Pureblooded families. These members of his house wore their blue armbands with a smug and almost sickening pride. His silver armband, a representation of his loyalty as a Death Eater, was attached to his robes at all times. Like all of the others in the Wizarding world, he wore the cloth so as to be easily identified; to not wear it was punishable by law and oftentimes, Death Eaters charmed the armbands to remain permanently attached to a person's clothing. Even Order members, he knew, now took to wearing theirs with some kind of bravado, sporting their yellow and green with affected nonchalance. Everyone knew how to identify the Undesirables this way, for if one was spotted wearing the green armband, which signified malice and thievery and misfortune, they knew that they were looking at a Mudblood and at least ten Galleons worth of prize if they handed them over.

It was not uncommon nowadays to see neighbors turn against one another, for there were shortages of money and supplies everywhere. After the Ministry fell, Death Eaters had swept across the countryside, looting possessions and burning fields of crops, making food in certain areas scarce. Out of sheer desperation had family members turned against relatives, claiming to members of the newly erected Ministry that they knew of supposed connections with the Order or that they'd recently come across the whereabouts of fugitive Muggleborns. It was a useful tactic that the Death Eaters had employed: by starving and endangering the lives of suitable citizens, they gave up some of their morality to save themselves.

Draco waited until night had fallen before he walked downstairs to meet his team. The men who would be joining him tonight were relatively young; as they stood in the parlor, the moonlight dashed across their features and lit up their unmarred faces. Blaise Zabini stood behind an armchair, his black cloak already on, his mask held in one hand. Theodore Nott was seated in the armchair in front of Zabini, his elbows on his knees as he stared into the flickering flames in the fireplace. Only Dolohov had been a Death Eater in the First Wizarding War and it showed in his expression that he was displeased to be working with seventeen year olds.

All three of them looked up to him as he entered the parlor and with a quick nod in greeting, Draco informed them where they would be Apparating.

"The safehouse is just on the outskirts of Hathersage."

The men donned their cloaks without another word. Silently, they made their way outside and one by one, Apparated to their destination.

* * *

Draco arrived in a foggy clearing after the others. He heard Dolohov cursing under his breath; the man had Apparated into what Draco assumed was a stream, for he could hear its water coursing past him.

"Nott? Zabini?" he called their names out into the darkness and heard their grunts of acknowledgement. Draco nodded to himself, pleased that they were all here. Now if the plan succeeded…

"Zabini, I need you to unlock the spells on the east side of the perimeter. I'll unlock the west. Nott, Dolohov, when this is done, you'll need to charge the house. Make sure you're not heard and get in as quickly as possible; we don't want the Order to have time to prepare a defensive."

"I don't take orders from junior Death Eaters, Malfoy," came Dolohov's voice from directly behind him and then stabbed his wand into the crevice between Draco's throat and his collarbone. Draco hadn't realized how close the man had been to him.

"Unfortunately, Dolohov, you're not really in a position to question my orders. The Dark Lord hasn't been particularly pleased with you of late," Draco responded coolly. "Now please lower your wand. The sooner this is over the better chances we have of gaining information on the Order."

Dolohov lowered his wand and Draco set off into the fog. He began his assault on the Order's defenses, unlocking every spell that he came across. Noting with some surprise that the charms placed around the safehouse were of decent quality, Draco finished and shot a signal to Zabini, who reacted in turn. They were ready to move in.

He could hear the crashing of boots through the reeds as Nott and Dolohov started to run toward the house; shortly after, Draco heard Zabini's footsteps nearby. Turning, he saw the gleam of a Death Eater's mask near him, and the two of them set off.

His heartbeat was pounding in his ears as he saw the house's lights only a short distance away. The silhouettes of Dolohov and Nott disappeared around the back of the house; in only a few minutes time, Draco thought, as he continued to sprint toward the safehouse, he would have succeeded. He would bring his family back to their former glory. He would win.

But suddenly there was a horrible scream that ripped the night air. Draco began to run faster, as did Zabini. They had not been instructed to kill, they were here to capture and bring prisoners in for questioning. Panic coursed through Draco's veins as he wondered who had been in that house, if they had really died and if they had been an important member of the Order. The more important they were, the harsher the punishment would be for him and the others. If Nott or Dolohov had killed someone like Kingsley Shacklebolt or Remus Lupin, Draco was certain that the Dark Lord would respond in kind and kill all of them.

Finally, Draco reached the house, Zabini panting beside him. Both of them raised their wands and blasted the door apart, sending shards of wood and glass into the entryway. Stepping inside, they removed their masks and looked around. They could not see anyone and there was not a sign of Nott or Dolohov. Just as Draco was certain that his fellow Death Eaters had taken off with the Order members without assuring him of their survival, he heard a crash from upstairs.

With a speed that he did not know he possessed, Draco dashed up the stairs, Zabini on his heels. Arriving outside of a door that looked similar to the one they had blasted apart downstairs, Draco paused and listened for any sound inside the room. Hearing none, he whispered, "_Homenum revelio_," and felt, to his delight, the reverberation in his wand that signaled that he and Zabini were not alone.

Draco entered the room and saw Nott and Dolohov in the corner, bloodied and unconscious. Whoever was here, Draco thought, was obviously a skilled fighter. But if there was more than one, than taking down two Death Eaters was hardly a difficult feat.

"Zabini, check downstairs. Someone's still here."

Without a word, Zabini exited the room. Draco stood, waiting, hoping that his ears would pick up some sort of sound. He wondered who had screamed and then he heard another bang from downstairs, interrupting his thoughts. Once again running with a speed he was sure he'd never used before, he entered what he assumed was the dining room of the house.

Zabini was on the floor, his mouth open and his cloak ripped. Draco saw, with something akin to horror and satisfaction, that Hermione Granger was standing near him, her wand arm outstretched, part of her clothes badly singed. Draco supposed that Zabini had attacked her just as she was about to escape but now he had her: he would take her back to the Manor and they would reward him handsomely.

But before he had the chance to Stun her, she cried out, "_Obliviate_!" and he felt his eyes fall out of focus just as he watched her turn on the spot and disappear.

* * *

**End Notes**: This is only the first time that Draco Malfoy attempts to capture Hermione. Obviously, he is unaware that she is to be his target and later on (meaning next chapter) we'll see his other attempts to arrest her. Please stick around, folks!


End file.
